


Blame Game

by Kona



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Accidental Confession, College AU, F/F, Fluff, Modern AU, Studying, first person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 09:43:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4824194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kona/pseuds/Kona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I blame everything but myself for it happening.<br/>Asami makes my brain stupid.<br/>And when my brain goes stupid, well…I can’t really gain control of all the other things my brain normally controls. Like my mouth. My really stupid, loud, mouth. Which, you know, leads to that thing I was talking about happening…<br/>“I love you.”</p><p>In which Korra, with a big mouth, cannot focus on studying, and Asami is an all knowing, long suffering, girlfriend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Hate Wonderwall

**Author's Note:**

> This originally started as a school assignment to tell a story from two perspectives-but it very quickly became Korrasami and WHO AM I TO STOP IT? No one that's who. First chapter is Korra's POV, second is Asami's. Also Asami's music playlist is an actual thing I have and use when I study as well. It's call 'you're hipster trash and you know it' in my iTunes. I like to keep it real.

We were on Asami’s bed when it happened.

I blame everything but myself for it happening. I mean, there was the _music_ -that lame, _lame,_ acoustic cover of Wonderwall playing from her laptop speakers. Then the lighting-that dumb fading fluorescent bulb in her lamp that I’d been pestering her about for _weeks_ that cast her room in this low, Disney movie glow. And last but not least there was her-sitting there in those dumb, ridiculously grubby sweatpants she’d owned she middle school and somehow still fit in and that tank top that seemed to be cut a little _too_ perfectly to be natural. Also the whole, not wearing a bra thing. That was definitely a thing. A thing I was really-sort of stupidly-interested in.

“You still with me, space cadet?”

Her voice, that was another factor. That low, husky thing that if I didn’t know it was natural would totally assume she was in some sort of screamo band. But no. It was just her natural, normal voice. Which was sort of wreaking havoc on my heart. Which was, just sort of, um…you know-not okay? Yeah. Not okay.

“Totally. How about them hemoglobins? Crazy stuff, right?”

Asami rolled her eyes, which you know, only made the whole thing worse because she does this thing where she blows some of her hair out her eyes when she does it and man-did she condition or something tonight??

“Do you even know what hemoglobins are?”

Shit. I really do _not_ know-I just caught the word in bold on the page I was spacing out over.

“Um…well, they’ve got ‘hemo’ in them so I’m gonna assume something with blood?”

A wry smile and my heart nearly collapsed. She tapped her pencil against a page of her open textbook. She looked like she was thinking about the best way to tell me I was an idiot, and I was seriously about to agree with her, when she finally gave a little laugh and lowered her head back to her textbook.

“Geez, you dork.”

I sat and watched her as she hummed along to the lyrics of this ridiculously overplayed song. Her lips were parted just enough that I could see a flash of her tongue-the sure sign she was actually concentrating on her studying. Unlike me. Who was staring at her girlfriend of around 8 months with the sort of look that would probably get me slapped across the face if I were doing it to a stranger.

Yeah. But she’s really _not_ a stranger. She’s my girlfriend. Which made it okay? I’m pretty sure it was okay. It was totally on Asami though-I mean-the _tank top_ , her _lips_ , that stupid _music_ , and the mood lighting brought to you by laziness-it was all a ploy in the end. It had to be. To get me riled up enough that I would say something stupid. _Do_ something stupid. She’s really good at that after all. Getting me to do stupid things. She just sort of-She-

Asami makes my brain stupid.

And when my brain goes stupid, well…I can’t really gain control of all the other things my brain normally controls. Like my mouth. My really stupid, loud, mouth. Which, you know, leads to that _thing_ I was talking about happening…

“I love you.”

The last chords of ‘Wonderwall’ were fading into some other sappy acoustic bullshit and I really, really wish that her playlist had something loud and full of overenthusiastic drummers because- _Shit_. Is 8 months too early to feel these sorts of things? Are there prerequisites to this? Was I supposed to bring flowers and sweep her off her feet? I feel like that was totally something I was supposed to do. I thought that this was supposed to be really special-this really big moment where the stars aligned and there would be a _mood_ and it would spill out of my lips like a prayer-not like a point I was making on how the weather is outside.

“Uh-I mean-you know-chemical reactions in the brain and um-studying! Yeah! The brain reacts in a happy way when you say that and you know-um-happy chemicals!”

It’s the worst excuse I have ever given in my life. And to be completely honest here, I don’t really know why I was apologizing. Like, I meant it. I really did. There wasn’t a doubt about it there-but you know-awkwardness, her whole outfit, and lighting, and yada, yada, yada, you already know that part. Brain to mush equals foot in mouth, because rejection is pretty much more terrifying than getting a shitty SAT score in your junior year of high school. And _that_ is pretty terrifying.

She looked up at me, and I really wished that she wasn’t staring at me like I was some sort of puzzle because I was feeling more awkward by the moment with that. It was a few more of those really, _really_ painful moments before a smile curled over her lips and my heart stopped attempting to punch a hole in my ribcage and instead decided the best course of action was just to stop altogether. Which in turn caused me to choke a little on a breath in my throat. I have to stop myself from wheezing in relief when that smile quirked higher and she’s just looking at me like she knew all along and somehow _I’m_ the one late to the party.

My heart resumed when Asami tilted her head and replied in a soft voice, “You act like that’s news to me, hun. I knew that a long time ago.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Ditto by the way.”

Hold up- _what??????_ I did wheeze this time, and give her what I’m sure was a ridiculous look. She laughed and I swear my heart was gonna give out if she kept that up.

“It means I love you too, you giant spaz.”

That time my heart really did give out. And then it came back to life. And it was incredible.


	2. I Love Wonderwall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to sympathize with Asami-but having taken a Human Biology test for Gen Ed. credits I have to agree with Korra that studying is a lame and futile exercise in trying to fix your grade. Still, Asami's trying. And that's what matters.

My girlfriend, Korra, hates acoustic music. Which is precisely why I was playing it during our impromptu study session. A frantic grouping of texts at 11pm the night before our shared Human Biology test begging to ‘please let me study with you I’m gonna fail and then my coach is going to kill me’ and other such pleas were met on my end with a roll of my eyes and a reply to come over to my dorm with her notes and textbook. If she could find it.

She did find it, by the way, which I was more than surprised about. But the music was the key to making sure that she actually studied. Anything with a drum beat would be taken as an excuse to start having a drumming session on any flat surface. So that nixed a good portion of our shared music tastes. Which left me with very few options to make sure my girlfriend got a passing grade. She’s told me before about her dislike of the overplayed nature of the ‘sad white boy with an acoustic guitar’, so it seemed fitting that in order to punish her for not studying (something I reminded her to do last week, by the way.) was to indulge in my own guilty pleasure of the ‘Wonderwall’s and ‘A Team’s of the world.

It wasn’t really working though, because lo and behold, there Korra was zoning out while staring at…yes, yes she was definitely staring at my chest. Drat. I had already taken off my bra when she texted me so I had thrown a sweater on to cover up but…the heating in my building was, as usual, far too high for my liking and I had forgotten my lack of coverage. My own fault, really. I should have just thrown a sports bra on, to make sure I was _really_ unsexy.

So my brilliant plan was derailed by my own laziness. Which meant that unless I actively decided to remedy it, _I_ was going to be the reason my own girlfriend got killed by her coach. All because I apparently, in Korra’s own words, ‘Have such nice boobs it’s so unfair to the rest of the world. Please, you really should share with the class how they are so awesome.’ Which I think is a bit of an overstatement given they aren’t the larger pair in this relationship.

So, it’s up to me to stop her from staring at me all night. Not that I don’t consider it flattering, but she needs to get a good grade on this chapter’s test. Our professor was only steps away from forcing extra credit and make up assignments down her throat. So I speak up:

“You still with me, space cadet?”

The look on her face is nothing short stunned. She knows I caught her staring and as I cock an eyebrow at her she gives a nervous sort of laugh before coming back with one of the lamest jokes I’ve ever heard out of her mouth-and that says a lot.

“Totally. How about them hemoglobins? Crazy stuff, right?”

Korra totally just grabbed the first vocab word she saw on the page out of thin air to replace her normal line of ‘How about them Red Sox?’ to make it seem like she was paying attention to her work and not well, staring at my chest like it was some sort of enigma of the soul. She totally has no idea what hemoglobins are. I know for a fact because the definition is blank on her review sheet. Blowing some of my hair out of my eyes gives me a moment to collect myself and get her back for being cheeky.

So I rise to the bait and call her out. Her face will be cute when it happens, anyways. “Do you even know what hemoglobins are?” The way her face just falls from that cheeky grin (that is unfairly cute by the way) is hilarious to me. A little revenge for her invading my space and then not actually studying.

“Um…well, they’ve got ‘hemo’ in them so I’m gonna assume something with blood?”

I have to actively stop myself from laughing at Korra’s response, but I can’t stop the smile that spreads across my face. Poor studier aside she’s still adorable. I tap my pencil against my textbook and ponder the ways I could correct her. She’s not technically wrong, but at the same time…there’s a tickling in the back of my telling me to snark at her. I decide to laugh though, because she’s already looking sort of deflated from my silence.

“Geez, you dork.”

Because she really is. For all she likes to believe she’s this big tough jock she’s still the one to cry at the end of Disney movies. Still the one to freak out when a bug flies in her face. Everyone in the school thinks I’m the meek and mousy one when, if we’re being completely honest, she’s the biggest goofball and shy thing I’ve ever met. And that was years ago.

‘Wonderwall’ is playing still, and I can’t help but hum along as I skim past the section of the chapter I was reading before she came over. Once I get to the new section I push the fact that she’s _still_ staring at me and focus on the cycle of the blood flowing through our bodies. The final chorus is drawing to an end as I’m about to flip the page and make a few notes about the new vocab when out of the blue-

“I love you.”

My pencil stops before it’s even started, because hold on, did I just hear that right? I did, didn’t I? A quick glance up to the panicked, blanched, face before me confirms that yes, my girlfriend totally dropped the ‘L’ word just then. It was very real. And from the looks of her mouth, desperately trying to form words she’s going to backtrack horribly. Oh _hun_.

“Uh-I mean-you know-chemical reactions in the brain and um-studying! Yeah! The brain reacts in a happy way when you say that and you know-um-happy chemicals!”

Happy chemicals. Are you _serious_. Endorphins and dopamine are reduced to ‘happy chemicals’. She is so going to fail this class if she doesn’t study more often. Still-she’s floundering and her cheeks have regained color, but a more accurate thing to say was that they resembled a very ripe strawberry. It’s all around very cute, and all around very amusing. Which I know isn’t fair because she’s waiting for me to do something, I can tell.

The warmth in my chest that’s been there since she walked into my room, with that winning smile of hers, blossoms. I knew she loved me. Knew from day one when she fumbled over her words to ask me to a movie night her team was throwing at the theater in town. Knew it when she gave me her ridiculously oversized sweatshirt when we walked back to the dorms. Knew it when she sat on this bed an hour ago with as much focus as a five year old. Stupid dummy, thinking she needed to panic.

When I smile she breaths, but it doesn’t quite come out right and she looks like she’s choking on her words. I bite back a laugh. “You act like that’s news to me, hun. I knew that a long time ago.” The way her shoulders fall in shock and her eyes blink owlishly isn’t new. But it is still just as amusing as the first time I saw it.

She lets out a small _Oh_ and I have to fight my laughter even more. She was steps away from full blown panic and now here she is, sitting limply on my bed, completely drained. Well…maybe not completely. I can still ruffle her feathers some more.

“Yeah. Ditto by the way.”

She really does _choke_ this time, and I can’t help the laugh that tumbles out of my mouth because my _God,_ she really has worked herself up over this. The warmth in my chest spreads across all my limbs, and my body tingles. It feels good to say that. She’s looking at me like a lost puppy, so I let her in on my little joke.

“It means I love you too, you giant spaz.”

There’s a moment of silence, and I feel the words still heavy on my lips. My smile’s a little too wide to seem like I’m not laughing at her, but it’s okay because the look on her face is enough to keep me warm for days to come. Her normal smiles were like a bit of light poking through on a cloudy day.

This one was like laying under the sun on a hot day.

And it was wonderful.


End file.
